I tend to avoid out and back. This means taking a plane, train, rental car at least one and sometimes both directions. However, the exact combination depends on where I am going. Some recent examples:
- This past Christmas, I drove a rental car to Brownsville, TX and cycled back
- A lot of my weekend trips in TX are out and back to nearby state parks or cities, but 4 times I've also cycled to San Antonio and taken rental car back and also done this to College station a few times.
- When living in Oregon from 2009 to 2012, each year I ended up cycling Vancouver BC to Eugene OR piecemeal and using Amtrak to make the missing links.
* One weekend, train to Vancouver, cycle to Seattle, train back to PDX
* Another weekend, train to Seattle, cycle back to PDX
* Another weekend, cycle to Eugene, train back to PDX
I also cycled from PDX to Whitefish, MT and took train back, cycled from PDX to Boise and took rental car back, cycled to Pasco and took rental car back, cycled to San Jose and took train back, etc. Also twice cycled four day trips along the Columbia River Gorge. Technically these might be out and back, but one direction I cycled the WA side and the other direction, I cycled the OR side. Also cycled some loops along the OR coast.